Thunderstruck

Larson (of Devil in the White City fame) again uses his trademark dual storylines to chronicle Guglielmo Marconi and the advent of the wireless while simultaneously recounting the story of infamous London cellar murderer Dr. H.H. Crippen. Sort of. In actuality, the alternating chapters are uneven, and much more effort and page space is spent on Marconi than Crippen. The Crippen tale is fascinatingly lurid; this makes Larson’s constant switching between the unassuming homeopath who’s about to leave nothing of his flamboyant, badgering wife but the steaming entrails, to Marconi’s endless puttering with his wireless, rather annoying. To call Larson well-written, however, would be an understatement; his style is both erudite and amusing, and he possesses an uncanny ability to construct extremely vivid likenesses of the personalities involved in any story. He does have a tendency to repeat himself at times, mentioning Crippen’s overly large, bulging eyes and spectacles almost every time the little doctor steps onto the page. Larson also has a tendency to digress, which he readily acknowledges (by his own account rather unrepentantly) in his introduction. Overall, Thunderstruck is well worth the read, and for those more scientifically minded than myself, might provide two fascinating stories rather than just one.

Review

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